What a Month!

And it ain’t over yet!  Not quite.

If we were having coffee today, well, hopefully, we wouldn’t be, would we?  Maybe we picked up to-go coffee at the drive-through and we’re talking in the parking lot like two cop cars comparing notes, me in my car and you in yours.

I’m sorry that I’ve been out of touch.  I’ve been busy putting the finishing touches on, not one, but TWO novels.  In this case “finishing touches” means working through the changes from the editing process (third-party editors) and then working through the galley approval process, for one at least.  I still have that to complete on the second one.

My historical novel, THE HAG RIDER will be out in June.  It is set in the civil war and involves a bit of paranormal activity.  More later, but I can assure you my history degree came in quite handy while I was researching this one.  Hey, I’m finally working in my other field of study!  (I have a degree in English as well … so I’ve put that into use too).
The fourth installment of my Traces of Treasure series, PENUMBRA, will be published in August.  Still working on this one.  Same characters, plus a couple of new ones, a new mystery to unravel … early reports indicate this one surpasses all the others.

In other news:  COVID-19, Coronavirus, or as I like to call it, C19.

Demographics at this early stage of the game are useless. This is why I get tired of the endless talking heads on 24-hour news. We’re not even getting other news. How many people know a whack-job was stopped from bombing a hospital in KC last week? Not many. It’s true, look it up.

Here’s a statistic: A virus like this has the ability to spread exponentially. If unchecked, it WILL spread exponentially.  It can be like an out of control wildfire. Social distancing is the firebreak.
ANYONE can get this disease. Young, old, healthy, sick, male, female, and no matter the race and ethnic background.  It does not discriminate. Do not draw conclusions from the talking heads … if it gets into you, you have no idea how your particular metabolism will react to it.

The only defense against it is for people to refrain from socializing. Period. You can protect from the required occasional need for shopping by strenuous adherence to common sense: keep your distance and no face touching prior to effective hand cleaning or sanitizing. I keep sanitizer in the car

Yes, probably more people won’t get it than get it. A high percentage of people who get it survive it. Our fatality rate is small compared to Italy, but in Italy, it is at least 10% … it is what happens when the hospitals are swamped and they run out of supplies and equipment. A high percentage of the people who survive but are hospitalized do so because of respirators. When they run out, the fatality percentage increases. It will happen here too, in most areas. Also, when protective gear runs out, more health professionals get sick.

One other thing: yes, people who have some underlying condition have a real problem surviving. But a LOT of people get sick and die of this who had nothing else wrong with them. The truth be told, it will be years before the demographics on that are known. I don’t want to flip a coin on this thing …

“Let’s be careful out there …”
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Thomas Fenske is a writer living in NC.  Remember, ebooks are the safest books to shop for and read and they are immediately available, virus-free!  I have a specialized page with links to my books and some handy tips into joining the ranks of electronic readers.  My books are also available in paperback, but right now … well, I hope nobody coughed on them.
http://thefensk.com/fd.html

Voices

If we were having coffee today I’d tell you that I found out this week that my darling bride Gretchen had not been very truthful to me recently.  After she told me the details I was not mad.  I understood her reasons.

When she first told me she had found a lump in her breast, we initiated a series of diagnostic actions that culminated in a cancer diagnosis and major surgery. She’s doing well now, thank you. She still has significant bouts of pain but she came out of the ordeal with no chemo, no radiation, and, so far at least, no cancer.

Ah, but this week she told me it wasn’t as simple as “she found a lump.”  In reality, she had hundreds of lumps and nodes.  This was the main reason she had a mastectomy instead of a lumpectomy.  Every nodule and papilloma was a potential cancer bomb and she was looking at a lifetime of biopsies and surgeries.

So if she hadn’t found a lump, what was it?

She heard a voice.

It wasn’t a physical manifestation but it was just as real as if she had heard it with her ears.  Somewhere deep within her soul a voice emerged in early January and said, “You have cancer.”

It unnerved her. I could tell she was more than just concerned, she was visibly upset when she told me she had found a lump.  I later wondered to myself how she managed to find one cancerous lump amongst the hundreds of targets in her breasts. I attributed it to luck.  Obviously, it was much more.

We’re human. It’s easy to assume others won’t understand if you say you heard a voice.  Now, voices, the potential for a deeper problem exists there.  But I find the notion of a prophetic warning to be quite acceptable.  I cover such things in several of my novels, both published and unpublished.  I believe in ghost stories too and I don’t discount many other prophetic happenings.

Whose voice was it?  Does it matter?  If could have been the massive supercomputer we call the subconscious brain.  That’s a clinical answer.  Myself, I prefer a more spiritual explanation. The voice of God?  Perhaps.  Or maybe what people call a guardian angel.  Sure, that works for me too. It could have been the spirit of a loved one, like her mother or her grandmother. Heck, my mother passed away in the last year, it might have been her.

It doesn’t matter who said it.  Not really.  The real point is: she listened.

There are many things in this world that are far beyond our understanding.  I think it is best not to question the good things.  Miracles?  Who am I to say?

Here’s a fun thing: Gretchen has a notion that I really like.  When she finds a random penny on the ground, she considers it a reminder that her late mother is watching over her and she picks it up because she considers it to be a gift from her mother.  I do it too. Hey, it means someone is looking out for you.  Besides, this notion is much better than that “see a penny, pick it up and all the day you’ll have good luck” saying.

Have you had similar experiences or do you know someone who has?
If it happens to you, my advice is to LISTEN.

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Thomas Fenske is a writer living in North Carolina.  There are prophetic and otherworldly glimmerings in both of his published novels too:  http://thefensk.com

the REAL braveheart

This is Alj … currently in the hospital in North Carolina waiting for a heart transplant.  He is thirteen years old and has been suffering from a form of congenital heart disease his entire life.

Some time before Christmas his mother was standing in line behind my wife at a store … the woman’s trips away from the hospital have been rare of late, and this was one of those few trips.  She mentioned his facebook page and we’ve been following him ever since.

I thought I’d take a break from hawking my novel and telling silly stories to tell you about him.  Please help get his story out.  I’ve learned a few things from Alj … he is a fighter, he’s upbeat, he has never given up hope.  Whatever your life throws at you, just reading about his life puts the minor trials and tribulations of most of our lives into a new perspective.

Go read about him and keep up with his story.  He is an inspiration, and so is his mother, who rarely leaves his side.  He’s hit a particularly rough patch this week and no matter your inclinations, please share your prayers, thoughts, vibes, karma, whatever you have … put it out there for him.
You can read more about him here:

http://www.facebook.com/Teamalj